Japan’s Education Ministry has published its latest draft guidelines on public education, to come into effect from 2020 after a ‘transition’ from 2018. Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reports that the principal aim of the guidelines, released in February, is ‘to reinforce the teaching of English’.

The Ministry of Education and Sport of the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos has signed a deal for a 33 billion kip (£3.3 million) investment in English language teaching by the English Language Institute/China (ELIC).

At the end of January the US state of Washington was the first to file a lawsuit against President Donald Trump in a bid to stop his executive order barring entry to the United States from seven countries. About a week later, over seventeen states had filed an amicus brief to support the lawsuit.